We had Thanksgiving at my brother and his wife's house. My parents were there, along with my brother Jeff and his son Alex (home from college), Lia and George, Barb's brother and his family, plus Barb's two kids. It was potluck, although Jim and Barb made a lot of food including the turkey. We had a good time.
Aaron managed to take one short nap while we were over there, thanks to Mom's magical abilities. Despite being short, his timing was perfect - he went down just before dinner and he woke up just after I had finished eating. He had sweet potatoes and a 3 grain cereal mix with homemade applesauce for dessert, fed to him by Auntie Lia. With all the food restrictions prior to 9 and 12 months (no dairy, no eggs, no meat, no wheat), there really wasn't any of the regular food he could eat this year.
He's been taking really short naps the last few days and seems to be teething like crazy, which makes me think the two are related. He moves his pacifier to one side of his mouth and gnaws on it, then moves it to the other side, gnaws some more, than moves it back to the middle and continues to suck on it. We gave him a teething biscuit today, in his highchair with us both keeping an eye on him. The biscuit was a wheat, soy and dairy free teething biscuit that had the consistency of particle board. Even I couldn't bite a piece off of it. I don't think he quite knew what to make of the biscuit. Mostly he sucked on it. Hopefully some teeth come in soon and he gets some relief.
One more picture from his 7 month birthday.
This was taken after our evening walk. The days have been getting cooler, so he needs a sweatshirt when we go out. By the time we get back from our 20 minute walk, his little hands are freezing.
I just wanted to post an update on how my work is going. I've got two contract jobs at the moment, one with my former company, that will cover my startup expenses and babysitting for the year. By year end, I should be in the black!
I've only been working about 20 hours a week, which is about what I can manage during Aaron's naps and when his sitter Julie is here, not working evenings or weekends when Thom is home. But I'm working on a deal for some funding for my first software product and the time lines I need to agree to for the funding will require me to increase my hours to near full-time. It's only for the next 4-6 months and in anticipation, I've had my niece Larissa (pictured here with Aaron in his carrier) start helping out two days a week after school. She gets dropped off by 3pm and stays through dinnertime with us, after which Thom or I give her a ride home.
It's really been great having Larissa babysit. She is 16 and I used to babysit her when I wasn't much older than she is now. She's great with Aaron and I think it is a good experience for her as well as for Aaron. And I'm really enjoying getting to spend time with her in the evenings and having her join Thom and I for dinner.
With Larissa's help, along with our sitter Julie, and by working some weekends, I should be able to get my product out Q1 of next year. And still have time to do things with Aaron like going to story time at the library (which we've done the last 2 weeks).
I'm really excited about work right now. Things are going well and I may even have some help getting my company off the ground. Just part-time help from some friends who have their own full-time jobs, but who are interested in what I'm doing and want to help me succeed. I think 2008 is going to be a very interesting year.
Since I started him on solid foods, Aaron has tried rice cereal, oatmeal, banana, carrots, peas, winter squash, pumpkin, and sweet potatoes. He eats everything, although I don't think he really liked the winter squash, so I've stopped buying it. The mushed up banana didn't evoke the positive reaction I expected for his first really sweet food, but I've started mixing it in with his oatmeal in the mornings and he seems to like it just fine.
I've made carrots and sweet potatoes from scratch, freezing them in ice cube trays and storing them in bags, and I fed him canned organic pumpkin that I watered down (and froze the left overs in cubes). I tried preparing peas (from frozen organic), but wasn't happy with the texture. I might try that again though, because right now, everything I have in the freezer is orange. I'm afraid he'll have a Vitamin A overdose! My mom is going to help me make some applesauce this week, though, so we'll have a second fruit to add to the menu.
He is such a good eater and I'm hoping that by exposing him to lots of foods now, he will stay a good eater, but I've heard it doesn't always work that way. I'm also hoping that by making as many of his foods myself that he will be less picky later on. My friend Lisa made a lot of her daughter's foods, just using the veggies she was going to eat, but preparing them special for Kimberley. Since home prepared foods tend to be a little more textured than jarred baby foods, she credits this practice with Kimberley's willingness, when they were away from home, to just eat mashed up or cut up food from Lisa's plate when she was a toddler, rather than Lisa having to cart around special baby food for her.
I've found that the carrots I cook and blend myself are more palatable to me than the jarred carrots I've bought (I taste everything I give him). So hopefully Aaron thinks so, too. Jarred baby food just seems to have a weird lack of texture and flavor. And as he grows up, it will be easier to just transition over to feeding him what we eat (minus the added salt) if I'm already preparing his food from scratch. Not that I don't buy jarred baby food - I do keep it for emergencies. But since it's so easy to make it, I don't see the point in using it on a regular basis.
In addition to eating solids for breakfast and dinner, I've also started giving him a sippy cup with water at dinnertime. He can't hold it himself, but he likes to suck some water out, swallowing some and letting the rest dribble down onto his bib. It's good practice for when he is weaned and it seems to be a fun experience for him.
Today is Aaron's 7 month birthday. It's hard to believe how quickly the time has passed. Thom and I read somewhere recently that with children, the hours pass slowly, but the days pass quickly. How can one afternoon drag on for so long when I'm tired, but a whole month passes by in the blink of an eye?
Aaron is developing quite a personality. He is a curious, social little boy with a maturing sense of humor. Except when he is tired, he tends to be in a good mood. He is constantly searching for new things to examine and touch.
He wants to grab everything these days. No longer content to just sit on the swing with me, he wants to grab the chain holding it up and see how he might apply his rattle to the chain. When walking around the house with him, I have to be careful of his grabby little paws that try to pick up anything within his reach. Many times I get up with him from the couch after a feeding only to find he has a throw pillow or the corner of the blanket on the back of the couch in his hand. He grabs things before you even realize they are within reach or that he was even paying attention to them.
He seems even more social these days, too. He loves being out and about and will be content in new surroundings even when tired to the point that at home he'd be having a meltdown. When strangers talk to him, he'll smile and sometimes shyly turn his head to the side in his stroller. He's a real charmer and seems to especially notice the ladies, be they toddler girls or adult women.
He still laughs and giggles at the old standbys - kissing his check, making silly noises. But he also has begun to find himself funny. One evening, he made a loud ear-piercing screech. We laughed at him and he laughed too. Then I was kissing his cheeks and making him giggle, but when I stopped, he paused and then tried to replicate the screeching sound. He didn't quite get it, but he still thought it was a funny sound and laughed at himself. When he laughed at himself, it was a different laugh than the giggle of being kissed by Mommy. This went on for several minutes. We couldn't help but laugh with him.
Here is a slideshow of some photos we took today.
We didn't get Aaron a costume for his first Halloween, but his Auntie Lia gave him this scary onesie which he wore to his 6 month checkup (it was delayed due to the fires last week). We think Aaron looks good in black, but it's not a color baby clothing typically comes in.
At his checkup, Aaron weighed in at 18 lbs 11 oz, so he is definitely slowing down, which is great since he's getting hard to lug around. He measured 27.5 inches, or one inch longer than 2 1/2 months ago, and his head circumference was 46 cm, 2 more than last time. The pediatrician didn't tell me what his percentiles were, but she said she had been worried his head size would be off the charts this time and was glad to see that his growth had slowed down a bit.
Thom had a meeting he couldn't get out of at the same time as Aaron's appointment, so this was the first set of vaccinations I had to handle on my own. Usually, Thom holds Aaron while the nurse administers the shots and I look away. It actually wasn't as bad as I expected. The first vaccination is oral, which he never seems to mind (I'm sure they sweeten it). I had him sitting in my lap for the shots with a pacifier in his mouth. I watched the nurse plunge what must have been at least a 3" needle into his leg (not all the way) and he didn't so much as flinch. But then she did the second shot and he howled and his face turned red as huge tears spilled down his face. She said that was the shot that hurt most babies. We still had two more shots to go on the second leg, but she went quick. As unpleasant as it was, I managed to calm him down within a few minutes and he was smiling by the time we scheduled his next flu shot (they do 2, one month apart at his age).
The one thing that is frustrating about pediatrician appointments, and I've heard other moms tell me it is the same at other offices, is the waiting. I had to check in 15 minutes before his 10am appointment. The nurse didn't call us back until close to 10:15. Toy Story had started on the big flat screen TV they have in the waiting room while we were waiting there. After taking his temperature, weighing and measuring him, the nurse left us to tell his doctor we were ready. Since it was close to feeding time, I fed Aaron while we waited. I could hear his doctor in the hall and then in adjacent rooms. It was after 11am by the time she arrived, so I was really glad I'd fed him. At least she apologized, but Aaron had been getting pretty antsy and tired and we'd had to pace around the small examine room to keep him calm. Having waited so long, I had no qualms about asking her my dozen or so questions I'd saved up for the appointment, all of which she answered and a few more. I'm sure the next mom had to wait even longer than I did...unless she was smart enough not to check in 15 minutes early. By the time we left, it was 11:30am - enough time that Toy Story had finished and was starting over again.
The day after his shots, Aaron threw up after breakfast. I had fed him oatmeal cereal, and winter squash for the first time. Then I nursed him. Then he threw up. It was the first time I've seen him throw up. I guess I can't be 100% sure it wasn't just spit up, but it sounded more like vomiting and there was more of it. I took his temp and it was around 100. I looked over the literature on the vaccines and several of them indicated vomiting and low fever were possible side effects in the days following the shots. Probably not a good day to introduce a new food since I couldn't be sure it wasn't the squash that had upset his tummy (although he has since had it again without similar effect, although we waited a full day to try again).
We had plans to visit my friend Biriz (who had invited me over for coffee) and her 1 year old daughter Alara and since he seemed to be feeling OK, I decided to go anyway. We stopped by my old office first to visit since it was close to Biriz's place and still too early to go over (we had to wait until after Alara's morning nap). I guess it was too much. By the time we got to Biriz's, his temp was over 101, so I stripped him down to his diaper and gave him some Tylonol.
He did OK at first, but he was really tired at that point and I tried to put him down in Alara's crib, but he couldn't sleep. He ended up getting so over-tired, he just couldn't calm down. I got him to quiet down a few times, but then Alara would cry a bit and it upset him so much, he'd start crying inconsolably. I think it was all from the shots. So we came home sooner than I would have liked and he took a nap. Not a long one, but when he woke up, he was feeling much better. And his temp had been down under 99.
We will have to visit Alara and Biriz again when he is feeling better. Biriz had made a wonderful cake with almonds and citrus that she served with coffee and had Aaron been in a better mood, it would have been a very nice afternoon out. Fortunately, Aaron seems mostly back to his normal self.
We had Thanksgiving at my brother and his wife's house. My parents were there, along with my brother Jeff and his son Alex (home from college), Lia and George, Barb's brother and his family, plus Barb's two kids. It was potluck, although Jim and Barb made a lot of food including the turkey. We had a good time.
